by Diane Munier
I wasn’t indifferent like I thought I’d be. I was…sad…and humble. I didn’t feel the need to understand myself it just was this sad humility.
I went a little closer to the bed and looked upon the bandaged man whose mouth was slack and whose one eye was closed while the other was only partly closed. I stood all the way in where he could see me if he wanted. I just kept looking at him.
The mighty had fallen. That’s all I could think. It was finally his turn to get a rock in his forehead.
Naomi was right. We were all going to die. It was inevitable. But how we lived…that was the thing that blew the predictability out of the water.
I felt something then, on the hand I had unknowingly placed on the bed, the trembling light brush of a finger, as light as a mosquito landing. I looked at him. He had touched me.
How did he mean it? Was it meant to be a slap? A punch?
Was it meant to be a hug? A plea?
Then a tear from the one eye that seemed to still work. He tried to speak but a garble came out and he swallowed and was frustrated. He tried again and grew anxious and another strange sound came out.
I bent over him a little. “I…I’m your daughter,” I said. “Maybe you think I’m someone else.”
He got agitated then.
“It’s okay,” I said. I was good with sick people. And crazy ones. “I just wanted you to know…I really am your daughter.”
Another tear and the hand lifting and shaking and falling back to the bed, then lifting again and falling against my arm and I went ahead and took it and in its way it tried to hold on to me. So I stood there holding onto his gnarled hand and he was looking at me, this desperate look like he was about to go under water and I was the only thing to keep him up, the only thing.
And I thought of Danny and what it would have been like…in the quarry…if he had let me go.
“Rest,” I said. Oh…God, this was a big, sneaky deal you’ve sprung on me, I was thinking. I was going to set the terms on our deal…not you. I had already said what it would be. I painted the Temple. I quit smoking. I went to church. I babysat. Once. I was trying not to curse. I was good for Naomi. I endured at school. Turned the other cheek. Yes I laughed a lot sometimes at various authority figures and assholes who spoke crap, I wasn’t going for perfection, but this…a rotting house, a failing business, and Lonnie looking like Boris Karloff in The Mummy? Oh no. Oh no you don’t. No, no, no, no, no, no…no.
Finding My Thunder 38
Danny was to call on Sunday. Temple couldn't end quick enough for me to get home and sit by that phone. I was eating the hamburger Naomi had made me and staring at that black machine.
"A watched pot never boils," Naomi told me.
I didn't care. I wasn't going to take my eyes off of that phone.
Wouldn't you know as soon as I gave in to my bladder it rang. I ran out of the bathroom still pulling up my underwear and tugging on my skirt. I fell over the arm of the chair and got it on the fourth ring.
Naomi graciously said she was going to take her nap and she shut herself in her bedroom. But I waved my hand at her cause on the other end of that receiver was the most beautiful heart stopping voice God ever put in a man, "That you Hilly?"
"Hello Danny," I said.
"Hey."
Then nothing for a minute, and I had tears and I was swallowing it all back down, the hysteria or something. "It's good to hear you," I said same time he said, "Well it's me."
"You first," I said laughing some.
He said, "It's me."
I said, "Well of course it's you. Who else?"
We laughed, and it was so strained. So I said that, and he said, "I don't know. I just…I miss you."
"I miss you, too."
"They listen cause they want their turn so we time each other."
"Well it won't get expensive then."
"I'd say more but…."
"You're shy?" I said just to goad him.
He laughed. "You'll think shy when you see me. You get my letters?"
"You get mine?"
"Yeah."
"Then you know I got yours."
"Bein' a smart ass?"
"Maybe," I said, then, "I'm sorry. I'm just excited you called," and I sounded like such a dumb ass.
"Well what's been goin' on?"
About a hundred things. "I didn't want to say in a letter, but Lonnie got hurt."
A big pause. "Go on."
"I mean…real hurt. He fell."
Another big pause. "You gonna tell me more?"
"He fell on the cellar stairs. He may have had a stroke. I…I don't want to talk about that the whole time. What about you?"
"I'm fine. So is he going to be okay?"
"Well…he ain't the same. He's like…he's…," I got all choked up and I wanted to strangle myself. Danny did not need to call some sad sack. I'd dragged him through enough.
"I don't know but now I said it…well I'll write you when I know."
"Write me anyway. All the time."
"You really like my letters?"
"I like," and I heard him moving around and he said like he was close to the phone, "I like everything about you."
I didn't answer.
"What about you?" he said.
"The…the same."
"I got you something for your birthday. I know it's late."
"What is it?"
"I'm not going to say. You have to wait until I get home. How's it going with school?"
"Fine."
"See anybody I know?"
"At school?"
"My family or anything?"
"Saw Dickens speed by one night but no…I'll write you about the business."
"What about it?"
"Oh I'll write. I want to talk to you. I do miss you. All the time. I wish you were here. Are they mean to you there?"
He laughed. "Tell me again."
"What? I miss you?"
"Yeah."
"I miss you. I…think about you that time at the airport."
"Promise you'll never hitchhike again. Not ever. I almost punched a hole in the wall when I read that. What were you…no self preservation."
"That time at the airport I was saying…you hugged me and I put my arms around you and I'd been missing you. You thinkin' still of those times? In my room?" Now I was whispering, keeping my eye on Naomi's closed door.
"That night…remember…what I told you? Your hair so long and…your shirt?"
I laughed a little. "Of course I remember it. Are there girls there…in the army?"
"There's no girl but one…just you. Every time I see a pretty girl anywhere it makes me want you all the more. I think, I got a girl like that, prettier even." Then it seems he had his hand over the phone and he was arguing with someone then he was back on again, "I gotta go. Just tell me one more thing. You think about me?"
"Everywhere I look at that school there is an Danny Boyd shrine. And…that's how it is in my heart. So…think on that?"
He laughed some. "I will. You love me?"
"Yes."
"You read what I want us to do when I get home?"
"I told you I'm ready."
"You forgive me…for breaking up?"
"Love keeps no record of wrongs," I quoted from scripture.
He argued again with someone, then he said mad, "I gotta go. Damn place…damn assholes."
"Well…hey…you wouldn't…that oil Lonnie slipped on…."
"What? What oil?"
"Never mind. We'll talk later. I…I love you so much I can't…I just do."
"Write me. Don't forget." There was some shuffling then he said, "Hey…I love you."
"I love you too. I'm about to die with so much love in me."
He was off then.
"Hello," I said, and it was dead. Damn I had just got going.
I threw my head back on the chair and cried like a maniac.
Finding My Thunder 39
They moved Lonnie to the VA hospital in Memphis for longer
term care and physical therapy. Naomi took me up to Corning after school to say good-bye. He seemed to be on high alert when I walked in. He got agitated. The nurse talked in a loud voice to him, like he was deaf or maybe in grade school mentally. I could feel his contempt for her but it was buried under something new. He was trying to behave.
But for me it was a high-heat look. It mattered to him that I was there. "I'll try to get up there," I said, meaning Memphis. “I call all the time to check so…," I went ahead and said it cause I didn't know how it would be down the road and he was going to have to take me as I was if I decided to help, "me and Naomi keep up with how you're doing. I'm trying to take care of things. They…left the house empty but I'm going to watch over it. And the shop, I'm looking over it all. You…you're not…alone is what…I guess I'm trying to say. Maybe you wish you were," I said ignoring the tears again that the nurse wiped from his face, "but…you're not."
His useless hand was against me again, against my fist, and I took his hand in mine. His face scrunched up like he was getting ready to say something, but I heard a curse, sounded like a version of, oh hell. That's all I could make out, and I laughed, and I think something lifted then, and he was glad I was there, maybe. But…it didn't matter so much what he thought, I was doing this as much for myself. I had to be what I said I was for my own good or I would go rotten inside. Like him. Like he'd been. And rotten showed up ugly. "So do what they say and try to get better and I'll be checking," I said.
So Naomi was there, in the background, in the room and she came forward then and said, "Mr. Lonnie I am going to pray for you," and she did then and he lay still and I knew we had him on a hot stove, his balls to the sun, but we weren't trying to hurt him in any way, so he'd just have to endure, cause one way or another, what I believed, I knew, God had laid him down.
Dear Danny, I wrote next day, and the next, and the next. I told him how me and Annie finally got together and I gave her the next two books and she about talked my arm off over those first two and she'd made a notebook with pictures that showed Nancy Drew in different scenes the book depicted, and Nancy was really well drawn but she looked more like Little Orphan Annie than the detective the books showed on the cover, so that was pretty funny.
“I painted Annie's nails and she said she wanted to come more but Paul wouldn't allow her to be in Naomi's house her being colored and I said well did you ever see a nicer house than this? And she just loved it at Naomi's, all the embroidery and doilies and pink especially. And the crochet, the poodle cover over the toilet paper, she about died over that. So we had the best time but I told her she better not make Paul mad so maybe we needed to meet at the library next time and she said she'd see. She don't get much time off it seems.
“Dickens, he lives on the street like you used to. He comes and I bring a blanket on the porch and we have hot chocolate and he eats a whole bag of cookies. He hates school. He wants to go see Sooner and the pups and Robert is going to take us next week. Oh, Dickens sleeps in your bed, but you know that. I love you for that (and all kinds of things).
“I’ve got so much to tell you I'm going to have to write a letter like a phone book to tell all of it. I don't want to take our phone time for all this. Let's just make that time for us to talk about us. But there is so much going on. Nothing to worry over, just a lot. Lonnie is settled at the VA. He don't cooperate much they say. So they're not going to keep him too long. Well the house sits empty and the other night I went up there…looked through. Dickens went with me. He thought it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen, that house. Going in there wasn't easy, but Loreena had tried to clean it some. But when she left, she left some old food. So Dickens helped me gather up some trash they left and we swept. It's like…naked. Just there so bare. My old room, I guess her daughter was in there for that time. It's pretty much the same but she took my posters down and I couldn't find them but that's alright.
“Bills. Oh Lord, you wouldn't believe how many. At the house and shop, just a mess. If my life was a head of hair I'd have the biggest beehive on my head, you could build a city of sorrow in it.
“But the truth, I ain't been happier. When I looked at all of it without Mama and Lonnie anywhere in the picture and just saw it for what it is, an old house and an old shop…I thought, these two places been my life, like two goals on the football field where my parents took their stands and I been thinking and moving between the two, but when Lonnie kicked me out, I went to Naomi and just got to be a kid, sort of. It's been the easiest thing. Do you know she puts a vitamin on the table for me every morning? It's like that. And she washes my clothes, won't let me do it cause she is real picky about the whites.
“Now here's the thing and I don't know what you would say…but I got a truck now.
“I mean…I turned sixteen, this kid from Snyder taught me how to drive pretty much, but I didn't have anything to drive to retake (long story) my test in so all of a sudden…I got a truck. Now is that God? I mean sometimes the timing just hits you right between the eyes. And here's why that matters so much—I made a deal with God for you. And I think he's just letting me know he's around. I think he's doing some stuff in such a way I can't deny it to let me know he's got you in the palm of his hand and he is going to bring you home to me. Don't get upset but I got to say this because…I am this. I realized it when the truck came to me. I got faith. Maybe it's not just like Naomi's but it's faith anyway. Maybe it's just a teaspoon of what I should have, or it's full of worms or something, but I've got some. I've kind of been steered that way and I fought it but it's in there just like…well I had a black grandfather. And Eugene, Naomi's son, was/is my uncle. You should know.
“Remember when I said Sukey feared the black in you calling to the black in me? He was right. But I think other things are calling too, like…my body for sure. My body is calling to yours.
“But there's more. After I get my license there is this woman…Allie Jackson who has a shop, a welding shop. I am going to that shop to see Allie. (She told me after school to look her up for maybe a job. She liked my guts with the hitchhiking, and I know you didn't, I know, but she did, she took me all the way home but I already told you that). Anyway, I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (thinking of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the night you held me…all night…the sweetest thing to sleep in your arms…to feel you around me like a holy robe…you're so beautiful I could die).
“But Allie is like my Great Oz, if you remember the story. I know she will be able to tell me what to do about Lonnie's mess at the shop. I just know it. Naomi is my mother in so many ways, but she is a woman of heart and soul. Allie has a willy.
“So…that's pretty much it. Wish me luck.
“Oh…I love you so much my heart squeals inside of me every time I think of you.
“Corny? I don't even care.”
Hilly
“(Oh…you are the butter on my corn!) Ha-ha! (but you are.)”
Finding My Thunder 40
We were traveling home from the VA hospital in Memphis. I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness, like a trapdoor had opened under my feet and I'd barely found my footing. But even now my toes were over the dark and drafty opening and I couldn't see what was down there but it wasn't good.
Whenever this happened, this bottomless feeling, I hummed and rocked a little.
Naomi was used to it, but she didn't like it. Sometimes she would try to fix me with her words and pats but she was driving now. I didn't expect her to pull over when we got off the highway. But she did, and she said, "Well let's see this driving I been hearing about."
I couldn't believe it. Knocked me right out of myself, out of my troubles for a minute. I got out and we switched sides. She said I couldn't go over thirty and I put my hands on the wheel and flexed my fingers and wrapped them around and before I knew it I was clipping down the road feeling pretty good. Driving wasn't so hard just straight up like this, and I knew this car was charmed. Any time it had trouble Naomi laid her hands on the
hood and prayed and a couple of time she swore it had fixed itself.
I let the truth come to me, the reason for the sadness. It wasn't about Lonnie. It was Danny, but more than missing him, it was seeing those boys, his same age, in that hospital home from the war.
If he were hurt like some of them…well I was locked into this deal with God. He had to listen.
I told that to Naomi, why I was troubled. That it wasn't about Lonnie, sad as he was.
"That's okay," she said, the oncoming lights slicing over her face.
I knew she was well acquainted with sadness. But it never stopped her, and sometimes I feared it would stop me.
"Being able to feel sadness is a gift. It's part of being compassionate," she said. "Some of our most beautiful art…music…comes from people expressing sorrow."
It was so quiet now and the wheels on the road and the hum of the engine that renewed itself like an eagle growing new wings. And she reached and smoothed my hair behind my shoulder. "Look at you driving this car. Lord…the time…."
"Thing is…I'm going to be getting my license this week…if I pass. And then I'm going to talk to a lady that knows about Lonnie's kind of business."
"Who?"
She didn't know about my trip to Memphis to see Danny off. So she didn't know about the hitchhiking, of course, and she didn't know about Allie.
"A lady I know of runs a shop…a welding and machine shop. I'm going to seek her counsel."
And just like I knew she would, she said this from scripture, "There is wisdom in a multitude of counselors…if they speak truth."
I didn't want to say more…but I knew Allie Jackson was a truth teller.
